I am pretty sure that no one on Vancouver’s south east side who has waited for politicians to get off their duffs and get them a new Killarney Seniors Centre will care about the robust politicking taking place this week as people line up to take credit.

More likely, people will simply be glad that the province, city and federal governments have finally agreed to cough up the $2.5 million each pledged for the new facility.

Some may be secretly glad that the Vision Vancouver city council, in its eagerness to guilt-trip the province, had decided in February to chip in an additional $1.2 million, the exact amount Victoria had seemed to short the project when it gave an initial $1.3 million last year. In February council passed a motion asking for the balance, but also said it would find the money itself because it didn’t want to make seniors wait any longer.

The province, for its part, had been hedging, saying it wasn’t sure it had the money since it found itself in a particularly tight fiscal spot.

if you are wondering, Coun. Raymond Louie, the city’s finance committee chairman, said Thursday Vancouver won’t claw back that extra pledge now that Justice Minister and Vancouver-Fraserview MLA Suzanne Anton has come up with the missing provincial funds.

That’s good news for seniors centre advocates who have publicly worried that the years-long delay in getting the centre built has escalated the cost beyond its original $7.5 million estimate. With $8.7 million now in hand and with the park board chipping in the land, the centre should look something like what the community needs.

But all this good news hasn’t stopped some pretty fierce politicking.

Vision folks – including Park Board chairman Aaron Jasper, Louie and others – were miffed that Anton didn’t specifically invite the city or the park board to Wednesday’s funding announcement. Instead, she invited Melissa de Genova, the park board’s liaison for Killarney Community Centre and one of two Non-Partisan Association opposition park board commissioners. Also invited was the other NPA commissioner, John Coupar.

Left off the list were any of the Vision Vancouver councillors or park board commissioners (who might reasonably be expected to take credit in this important election year.)

Is it a coincidence that de Genova and Coupar are politically aligned with Anton, who for years was an NPA councillor and one-time mayoral candidate?

Well, to the Vision folks, it sure looks like it. Jasper said neither he nor Mayor Gregor Robertson were invited, nor were park board management. Louie also thought that was odd,since “it was the city’s name on the cheque”.

But Anton told me today that park board manager Malcolm Bromley was invited through de Genova, and that she personally briefed the mayor about the province’s contribution two weeks ago. The fact neither he nor Jasper were invited was “because this was a provincial event”. (In other words, its my party and I’ll invite who I want.)

The Vision park board commissioners apparently complained enough to organizers at the announcement that de Genova was asked not to make a speech.

In the end, Louie and commissioner Sarah Blyth crashed the announcement. Jasper is at home sick with one of the bugs kids regularly bring home from daycare.

This actually looks more like that old saying that if the shoe fits, wear it. I can remember not a few times that Anton found herself on the outside looking in while holding down a battered Fort NPA on council, all while she was ganged up on by the Vision majority. Current NPA councillors George Affleck and Elizabeth Ball get similar treatment.

But are we supposed to really worry about this? After all, didn’t the NPA councils of old also beat up on the tiny Coalition of Progressive Electors minorities, especially Jenny Kwan when she (like Anton at one time) was the only elected opposition member?

As I stick up a wet finger in all this wind, all I can feel is an election coming.

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